Cloud Radio Access Networks (CRAN) enabled joint processing (JP) techniques, such as joint scheduling, joint transmission, and the like, have shown significant promise in improving throughput and coverage, as well as reducing operating expenses, of Third Generation Partnership (3GPP) Long Term Evolution Advanced (LTE-A) communications networks. Typically, a strong backhaul link between transmission points (TP) and a global controller, such as a central coordinating unit (CCU), is needed to form a joint transmission point from one or more TPs in a hyper-cell and realize multi-transmit point functionality inherent in CRAN.
An efficient implementation of joint processing, e.g., joint scheduling, joint transmission, and the like, also requires stringent inter-TP synchronization, as well as accurate channel knowledge of the user equipment (UE) operating in the hyper-cell. Meeting these requirements and/or constraints may become infeasible as the size of the hyper-cells increases. Furthermore, computational costs involved in joint processing also increases dramatically with the large number of UEs inherent in large hyper-cells.